What type of brazed joint should you design? There are many kinds of joints. But our problem is simplified by the fact that there are only two basic types – the butt and the lap. The rest are essentially modifications of these two. Let's look first at the butt joint, both for flat and tubular parts.
As you can see, the butt joint gives you the advantage of a single thickness ot the joint. Preparation of this type of joint is usually simple, and the joint will have sufficient tensile strength for a good many applications. However, the strength of the butt joint does have limitations. It depends, in part, on the amount of bonding surface, and in a butt joint the bonding area can't be any larger than the cross-section of the thinner member.
Now lets compare this with the lap joint, both for flat and tubular parts.
The first thing you'll notice is that, for a given thickness of base metals, the bonding area of the lap joint can be larger than that of the butt joint and usually is. With larger bonding areas, lap joints can usually carry larger loads.
The lap joint gives you a double thickness at the joint, but in many applications (plumbing connections, for example) the double thickness is not objectionable. And the lap joint is generally self-supporting during the brazing process. Resting one flat member on the other is usually enough to maintain a uniform joint clearance. And, in tubular joints, nesting one tube inside the other holds them in proper alignment for brazing. However, suppose you want a joint that has the advantages of both types; single thickness at the joint combined with maximum tensile strength. You can get this combination by designing the joint as a butt-lap joint.
True, the butt-lap is usually a little more work to prepare than straight butt or lap, but the extra work can pay off. You wind up with a single thickness joint of maximum strength. And the joint is usually self-supporting when assembled for brazing.
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